What does it mean to know Jesus? Not to know of Jesus but to know Jesus. It means to share consciousness. To share the same consciousness state, the same consciousness process. This is not so strange as some might think. Your consciousness is not a closed system. Far from it. Your consciousness state is an interflow of all the people you have met, all the books you have read, all the movies you have seen, all the experiences you have had, and are having, with all that exists both near and far.
No matter how much some of us like to think so, we are not an island unto ourselves, independent separatenesses standing alone with a fist raised to the sky. The entire cosmos is a web, a matrix of ongoing relations.
To know Jesus means to enter his consciousness, to share his view point, to stand where he stands and look out through his eyes. This is done in the same way that one knows Socrates and Buddha and Lao Tzu and Wolfgang Pauli and Carl Jung and Emily Dickinson and Ibn ‘Arabi and the person who wrote that letter to the editor. It is a familiar process. One we engage in constantly.
To know Jesus I read his words. I read them carefully, slowly. I read them with my heart as well as with my eyes. My consciousness merges with his consciousness. I understand what he is saying. I do not stand out here and look at him and worship him or revile him. I merge consciousnesses. This is how I know Jesus.
Of course, you may not wish to know Jesus. That is your affair. Relax. No one is trying to shove Jesus down your throat. You may wish to know someone or something else. Do it. Do it well and thoroughly.
As for me, I have become well acquainted with those other folk mentioned above, but the one I love the most and with whom I continue to be engaged in ongoing conversation is Jesus. I love his consciousness: a great sense of humor, of irony, of paradox, of empathy, of understanding, of forgiving while taking no shit. Our relationship continues.
